Children and adults enjoy accessorizing rooms with stuffed animals and other novelty items. Teddy bears and dolls take on personalities of their own, particularly when adorned in seasonal or regional outfits. It is the unique, personalized features of the stuffed animals and dolls that attract those toys to their future owners.
Consumers of novelty items search for and appreciate good values. Quality, appearance and price play important roles in purchasing decisions. Safety is also a major concern, particularly for parents having small children.
For years, seasonal scenes have been uniquely captured in three-dimensional displays known as water balls. A conventional water ball includes a generally spherical globe that is filled with water. Free-floating objects for imitating bubbles or snow are suspended in the water. Decorative means such as plastic figures, lights and movable characters are also provided in the globe. Typical water balls having stationary and fixed decorative articles provided therein are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,092,065 and 5,416,995.
Stuffed animals have been combined with unique articles to create distinctive, appealing items. Generally, those items require a securing assembly be provided as part of the stuffed animal for holding the article in place. According to the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,450, a decorative time keeping apparatus includes a stuffed animal having a clock removably secured therein. A housing having means for releasably holding the clock is provided as the securing means. The housing is inserted in an opening in the stuffed animal and secured to the surrounding fabric.
According to the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,843, a baby bottle holder includes a stuffed animal having a generally circular opening extending therethrough which is sized for receiving a bottle. A non-expandable ring-like member is provided in the opening for gripping and holding the bottle.
To manufacture existing stuffed animal/decorative article combinations, conventional stuffed animals must be retrofitted with a securing assembly matched to the locking means or engaging surface of the article to be secured. That requirement results in increased manufacturing and assembly costs, increased incidence of failure and limited interchangeability. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,483, it is specifically provided that support members must be included and that bottles of varying shapes and sizes are only compatible with support members equipped with rings of precise diameters. Manufacturers must custom make the stuffed animal, the securing assembly and the display article, which results in lower productivity and increased costs that are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
It would be desirable to provide a cost-effective, high-quality, attractive inanimate object/water ball combination toy or novelty item that does not require a securing assembly and that is safely enjoyed by parents and children alike.